Oxford blues: Chinese executives log complaints over training programme
Participants say they spent a lot of time queuing for library cards, and a visit to Germany turned into a bus tour circling factory grounds
Lan Shili, a former billionaire who founded one of China’s first private airlines, beamed in front of the camera: “With the Oxford gown, the Oxford badge, and this library card – once you’ve got this three-piece set and you’re sitting here, don’t you kind of look like an Oxford person?”
“My Oxford life officially begins today,” he declared in a video he shared on the Weibo microblog service in September.
Nearly a year on, the executive training programme that took him to the prestigious University of Oxford – and which reportedly cost 1.08 million yuan (US$160,589) per participant – has sparked a media firestorm in China.
Some participants complained to the university, as well as the media, that the actual curriculum and experience they received fell far short of the programme’s glossy marketing pitches and called it a scam.
While such cases were rare in China’s relatively mature executive education market, experts said they underscored a persistent reality: the networking opportunities and prestige offered by the world’s top universities were still a powerful draw for the country’s business elite, especially when global expansion was a common aspiration.
Dozens of Chinese executives attended the Oxford Global CEO Programme’s modules in the United Kingdom and Germany last September, followed by sessions in Hong Kong and Singapore in December.